For many summers, East Holladay Park was little more than a wide flat field off Northeast Holladay Street in East Portland. Then the Portland Parks and Recreation Bureau installed a winding trail for walking and jogging a few years ago. And then the city built a jungle gym this past October, much to the relief of nearby parents like Shannon McKinnon.

And thanks to Parks and Rec, the East Portland Action Plan, Multnomah County and neighborhood activists, East Holladay will host an expanded "mobile playground" program twice a week for eight weeks this summer.

"We were very excited to get some things in this park," McKinnon said Wednesday. The mobile playground means organized games, arts & crafts and other activities for her 6-year-old daughter Kaia McKinnon and 3-year-old son Finn McKinnon.

Wednesday morning, the mobile van arrived, bringing two Parks staffers trained to lead games and entertain kids, along with mounds of board games, balls, racquets, toys, jump ropes and Frisbees.

Though organizers say it will take time for word to spread and draw a crowd, that didn't stop the McKinnon kids. Finn sprawled out on the warm grass to play Chutes & Ladders with Park staffer Xander McPherson while Kaia drew a picture of the butterfly that had just fluttered past her as Park staffer Rachel Huffine watched.

"It breaks up our day," Shannon McKinnon said. "It gives them something fun to do and it gets them outside."

That's music to the ears of Arlene Kimura, president of the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association and a member of a citizen committee that last year raised money to expand the mobile program to 10 park-deficient East Portland sites.

This summer, the program will make stops at churches and apartment complexes and offer free recreational opportunities to a mostly blue collar and immigrant community where summer camps and youth sports leagues can be out of financial reach.

The East Portland Action Plan paid for last year's effort and half of this summer's $33,000 cost. Multnomah County covered the remainder through a health initiative, Kimura said.

The summer playground program is decades old, according to Jeff Milkes, Southeast and East Services manager for Parks and Rec. In recent years, the program has paired with a summer lunch program that fed 100,000 meals to needy kids last summer.

Though Kimura and other East Portland supporters would love to see the mobile playground partner with a free lunch initiative, they'll first look at finding sustainable funding for the mobile part.

In the meantime, they're happy to sit on a nearby bench and watch children exercise, play and socialize with neighbors.

To expand the program this summer required translating the promotional fliers into Nepalese, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Somali, Spanish and Burmese.

Helping the community bond around its communal spaces is another goal.

"In inner Portland, people identify with their parks," Kimura said. "But in an apartment complex or in a place where there are no play spaces, it's really hard to identify with. So we're trying to do that, as well."